Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In thinking about global poverty, the question of moral motivation is of central importance: Why should the average person in the West feel morally compelled to do anything to help the poor? Various answers to this question have been constructed—and yet poverty persists. In this paper I will argue that, among other difficulties, the current approaches to the problem of poverty overlook a critical element: that poverty not only harms the poor, it harms every human being. Its existence forces us (...) to live in a world where we are compelled by a pervasive ideology to eviscerate our own humanity and neglect our human impulses. Drawing on Karl Marx’s Aristotelian-influenced notion of our human essence as “species-being,” I will construct an account of moral motivation in the face of poverty that stems from a selfish desire to avoid these harms. Thus our moral impetus for acting to help the poor comes not from feelings of guilt about how poverty harms them, but rather from recognizing that poverty is harming all of us. By fighting against global poverty, we seek to make the world a better place for ourselves and the poor alike. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the face of widespread poverty, Peter Singer argues that the best response is giving money to charitable organizations that give aid to the poor. In response, much criticism has been leveled by cosmopolitan philosophers that philanthropy is unable to effectively combat poverty for many reasons: such funds fall prey to corrupt bureaucrats, the poor will waste the money, or become dependent upon donations rather than providing for themselves. In this paper, I argue that the work of the organization GiveDirectly (...) offers an approach that can overcome the criticisms leveled against philanthropy. GiveDirectly works by providing direct cash transfers to the poor; by adopting such a straightforward method, GiveDirectly provides practical benefits to the poor, and overcomes key philosophical critiques. The poor are empowered to make choices to meet their own needs, and do not become dependent upon donations. While GiveDirectly does not constitute the solution to the problem of global poverty, it does pro... (shrink)

In the face of climate change, moral motivation is central: why should individuals feel compelled to act to combat this problem? Justice-based responses miss two morally salient issues: that the key ethical relationship is between us and the environment, and there is something in it for us to act to aid our environment. In support of this thesis there are two seemingly disparate sources: Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si and the early Marx’s account of human essence as species-being. Francis argues (...) we must see nature as an “other” with whom we have a relationship, rather than dominating nature. Marx considers how we currently interact with “others,” and the harms these interactions cause to us. In both contexts, we harm our environment by not acting to meet its needs, and harm ourselves by making it less likely to develop ourselves as more fully human persons. It is the avoidance of these harms that can motivate us to act against climate change. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Ausgehend vom klassischen augustinisch-boëthianischen Ewigkeitsbegriff und seiner theologischen Kritik im 20. Jahrhundert versucht dieser Artikel, eine konsequent trinitätstheologische Lösung der Frage nach der Beziehung von Zeitlichkeit und Ewigkeit zu bringen. Das Konzept wird christologisch in der Auferstehung verankert, auf einem dynamischen Gottesbegriff gegründet, der Gott als den sich akkommodierenden Gott auffasst, und trinitarisch ausgeführt. So bleibt der Vater durch den Geist der Herr der Zeitlichkeit, die in Jesus Christus zu seiner eigenen Zeitlichkeit und diese zum Bestandteil des Lebens Gottes (...) geworden ist. Kreuz und Auferstehung Christi bilden deshalb die Mitte sowohl der Zeit als auch der Ewigkeit. (shrink)

This paper analyses whether the aggregation of individual happiness scores to a National Happiness Index can still be trusted once governments have proclaimed their main objective to be the pursuit—or even maximization—of this National Happiness Index. The answer to this investigation is clear-cut: as soon as the National Happiness Index has become a policy goal, it can no longer be trusted to reflect people’s true happiness. Rather, the Index will be systematically distorted due to the incentive for citizens to answer (...) strategically and the incentive for government to manipulate the Index in its favour. Such a distortion would arise even if the measurement of subjective well-being correctly reflected actual happiness before the intervention of government. Governments in a democracy should establish the conditions enabling individuals to become happy. The valuable and important results of happiness research should be introduced into the political process. Each person should be free to pursue happiness according to his or her preferences. This process is supported by obedience to the rule of law, human rights and free media, as well as by extended political participation rights, decentralized public decision-making, an open and effective education system fostering upward mobility and the possibility to find suitable employment. (shrink)

„Das Naturrecht ist die Wissenschaft, welche aus dem Wesen und der Bestimmung des Menschen und der menschlichen Gesellschaft das oberste Prinzip oder die Idee des Rechts ableitet“. Das Naturrecht gründet in der Überzeugung, „dass es ein von willkürlichen Satzungen unabhängiges, in einer höheren sittlichen Lebensordnung gegründetes Recht gibt, welches als Maßstab zur Beurteilung der bestehenden Verhältnisse und Einrichtungen und als Richtschnur für ihre weitere Ausbildung zu dienen bestimmt ist“. (Heinrich Ahrens).

The Culex remains the most bewildering of poems. The consensus of modern opinion holds that it is a deliberate forgery, post-Ovidian in date, purporting to be a work of the youthful Virgil and thus serving to fill the large biographical vacuum in the career of the poet before the publication of the Eclogues. If this is the case, it must be asked why the forger chose to fill that gap with a poem thematically and stylistically so idiosyncratic which nevertheless managed (...) to gain ready acceptance as Virgilian by the end of the first century A.D. This is a very large question, but in postulating the close dependence of parts of the poem on Cornelius Gallus , particularly on his symbolism of poetic inspiration , I hope to go some of the way towards providing an answer . If this article is directed primarily at the problem of the Culex, I would like to think it makes a contribution also to the much more important study of Gallus, whose reputation has suffered somewhat since the publication of those wretched lines from Qasr Ibrîm. Yet, if not a single line of his work had survived, the one thing we could say of his poetry with confidence is that it inspired. Anyone trying to make an assessment of Gallus' poetic achievement should first make a close study of Virgil's Sixth and Tenth Eclogues and then ask whether fragments have ever formed a firm basis for the evaluation of an author's work. Rehabilitation should not be necessary. (shrink)

Everyone knows the statement of Servius that Virgil was compelled by Augustus to alter the second half of the Fourth Georgic after the fall of Gallus, and that he substituted the story of Aristaeus for the laudes Galli. This statement, often doubted by older generations, has had such a remarkable success in recent years that anyone who ventures to impugn it must feel that he is pleading with a halter round his neck before a one-sided jury. It is notable, (...) however, that these jurors, though one-sided, are by no means united, save in their determination to uphold the credit of Servius. One group will assure us that the episode of Aristaeus shows obvious signs not only of haste but of immaturity, and they draw a pathetic picture of the grief-stricken Virgil, ordered to bring out a second edition minus the praises of his friend Gallus, and half-heartedly throwing together some bits of juvenile stuff which he happened to have handy. Others assure us that the tale of Aristaeus shows us a more mature Virgil, nearer to the Virgil of the Aeneid. But the Servians really cannot have it both ways. They must make up their minds in the one direction or in the other if they are to be taken seriously. They make it doubly difficult for us to take them seriously when they try to tell us what Servius meant—but of that more anon. The present paper is an attempt by a converted Servian to examine frankly the arguments which have been advanced in support of Servius. Most of these may be found in Skutsch, Aus Vergils Frühzeit, pp. 140–147. One is very reluctant to use disparaging words about an eminent scholar who has served the cause of learning in so many ways; but it can scarcely be denied that the work just mentioned, in spite of its ingenuity and enthusiasm, shows a lamentable lack of three great essentials—a judicial temper, accurate statement of facts, and cogent reasoning. There is also at times a regrettable vagueness of expression, suggesting that the author is concealing inward doubts or shrinking from thought. All these deficiencies are to some extent present in the section with which this paper is concerned. (shrink)

It has long been noticed that Virgil's Eclogue 10, in which Gal I us plays so prominent a rôle, contains a combination of pastoral and elegiac elements. But this prompts the question: who was responsible for this combination? Was the fusion of pastoral and erotic-elegiac detail Virgil's own, or did Gallus himself write love-elegies with a strong pastoral colouring, a type of poetry which Virgil then echoed in Eclogue 10?

The editors of the new fragment of Gallus draw attention to line 6, ‘fecerunt carmina Musae’. They say ‘“fecerunt” is unusual in such a context, and to a Roman reader would inevitably suggest ; the Muses of Gallus provided craftsmanship as well as inspiration’. It is possible to be more precise: cf. Euphorion fr. 118 Powell.

C. Cornelius Gallus requires brief introduction or none at all. A poet in his own right, the friend of Virgil and of Pollio, Gallus is enshrined for ever in literature—and in literary legend, for the inept fictions of Servius and his tribe will survive the most damaging of revelations, remembered even when refuted. Not only that—Gallus is a conspicuous figure in the social and political history of the revolutionary age.

The elegiac lines in PQasrlbrim inv. 78–3–11/1 , first edited and ascribed to Gallusby R. D. Anderson, P. J. Parsons and R. G. M. Nisbetin 1979, raise a number of major problems of interpretation yet to be resolved. As is now well known, the papyrus fragment contains nine fairly well-preserved lines: first a pentameter, followed by two quatrains each composed of two elegiac couplets; the two quatrains are carefully marked off from each other and from the lines which preceded and (...) followed them by a pair of signs which have defied interpretation; another such sign can be seen to have marked a similar separation between groups of lines in the next column of the papyrus. One might think that the sets of lines thus marked off were quite separate epigrams, or perhaps excerpts from longer poems, for they are concerned with separate, indeed discrepant, topics – the naughtiness of Lycoris, the morale-boosting effects of Caesar's forthcoming successes, the love-poet's fearless stance before his critics – and they do not seem prima facie to follow logically after one another. However, various unmistakable verbal and thematic connections between them have rightly been pointed out by Nisbet. So what is this sequence of related verses and why is it set out in this way? (shrink)

Although modern scholars have expressed in various ways the view that the Gallus passage is unusual in its context,1 no editor or commentator during the past quarter of a century has questioned the ordering of the lines in which the Gallus passage occurs.2.

Voici, pour la premiere fois edite et traduit, un texte grec antique perdu dans la langue originale et conserve en arabe. Il s'agit d'une lettre redigee par un mysterieux Ptolemee, philologue aristotelicien actif a Alexandrie autour de l'an 200 apres J.-C., dans laquelle celui-ci rapporte la Biographie et le Testament d'Aristote, ainsi qu'un Catalogue d'une centaine de titres inconnu par ailleurs. Ce vestige est l'une de nos meilleures sources d'information - et la seule qui soit interne a l'ecole peripateticienne - (...) sur la vie d'Aristote. Elle permet de reconstituer les liens entre Aristote et le pouvoir macedonien - Philippe, Alexandre le Grand et le general Antipatros - ainsi que l'emancipation progressive d'Aristote a l'egard de Platon. C'est aussi notre seul temoignage sur la premiere edition, dans l'Antiquite, des ecrits savants du Philosophe. Instantane pris sur le vif de l'etat de la philologie aristotelicienne, a Alexandrie, a la fin du IIe siecle, ce texte est une lecture essentielle pour quiconque s'interesse a la question de savoir ce que nous lisons quand nous lisons Aristote. (shrink)

In 16 CE, Asinius Gallus proposed election reforms. Tacitus views these reforms, like many of Gallus' actions, as a hostile move against the emperor. In this paper, I argue that they were not proposed in opposition to Tiberius, but instead were a calculated compromise aimed at meeting the Senate's desire for more praetors to share the duties of legionary command, while also maintaining the limit of twelve praetors per year that Tiberius had established in the elections of 14 (...) CE. As a leader in the Senate, Gallus hoped to broker a deal that the emperor would support. (shrink)

As far as I am aware, it has generally been taken for granted that ‘Kato’ in the pentameter must be vocative. The double vocative ‘Visce’—‘Kato’ does not seem objectionable if ‘non’ were repeated as first word of the pentameter . None the less this is unexpected, and it seems at least worth considering the possibility that 'Kato’ might be nominative. The most plausible way of accounting for a nominative would be as subject of a relative clause. Further consequences would follow (...) almost inevitably: the word-ending doubtfully read. (shrink)

In CQ 34 , 167–74, Janet Fairweather makes the interesting suggestion that the elegiacs by Gallus on the Qasr Ibrim papyrus should be understood as ‘a fragment of an amoebaean song-contest’. This hypothesis, as she notes, might explain why the papyrus' quatrains are set apart by spaces and by an odd type of symbol, and treat ‘separate, indeed discrepant, topics’, yet show ‘unmistakable verbal and thematic connections’. Fairweather's discussion is thorough, but overlooks one small piece of evidence for Gallan (...) amoebaean verse. (shrink)